Vancouver airport backlog will take days to ease: airport official

It could be days before passengers who have been stranded at Vancouver airport due to weather conditions can reach their destinations, the airport authority said Monday.

About 3,000 people spent Sunday night at Vancouver International Airport after a snowstorm walloped B.C.'s south coast with up to 70 centimetres of snow, forcing delays and cancellations of most outbound flights.

"We have taken a significant hit here in terms of the snow, and it's going to take a few days to recover from this," said Don Ehrenholz, the airport's vice-president of operations.

Airport officials gave priority to larger international flights, which created a massive backlog of delayed and cancelled domestic and regional flights.

One of the two airport runways, which was closed overnight Sunday, reopened at about 12:30 p.m. Monday.

The long lineups at the airport thinned out Monday night, but new delays are expected as more snow is forecast to hit the province Tuesday evening.

Airport officials are asking travellers to check the status of their flights on the airport website or with the airlines before heading to the airport.

The snowstorm also had a huge impact on traffic.

Public transit official are advising commuters to dress warmly and to be prepared for long waits in sub-zero temperatures.

During the morning commute Monday, bus service was stopped or delayed in many areas, particularly those routes with hills. Buses were returning to their normal schedules in the late afternoon.

As the temperatures inched up in the afternoon, large puddles of water mixed with slushy snow appeared at many intersections throughout Metro Vancouver, causing headaches to pedestrians.

Many side streets remained snow-covered and vehicles were stuck in the snow and needed help, said Peter Mann, a tow truck operator with the British Columbia Automobile Association.

"The roads are too deep. I can barely get in … You are not getting a lot done today," Mann said Monday afternoon.

The Insurance Corp. of British Columbia said about 8,000 claims calls were received between Friday and Sunday, a 30 per cent increase in call volume compared with two weekends ago, the Lower Mainland's last weekend without snow.

"No one was expecting the winter weather to be quite as harsh as it is being at the moment, particularly the snowfall we saw yesterday was kind of unprecedented at least for a number of years in the Lower Mainland," spokesman Adam Grossman said Monday.